Associate Director, Data Labs at Pew Research Center

Primary Responsibilities

• Team management: Responsible for day-to-day management and career development of junior and mid-level research staff.
• Public spokesperson: Interfaces with internal partners and stakeholders around research production, dissemination and budgeting.
• Methods, research standards and process guidance: Works with research staff to select most appropriate methods and project designs for ongoing research efforts.
• Technical toolkit management: Ensures that research best practices are being followed and sufficiently documented.
• AI governance and use of LLMs: Contributes significantly to AI governance and use of LLMs in the research process for the team and across the Center.
• Team strategy: Helps to pitch, select and refine the team’s ongoing research portfolio.
• Project oversight: Helps to shepherd projects from conception to production.
• Strategic direction: Helps set the overall strategic direction and focus of the team.

Education/Training/Experience

• PhD-level research experience or equivalent.
• Experience leading research teams or managing people preferred.

Requirements

• Experience conducting or managing technical research projects using diverse data sources (including web, social media, text, geographical, and/or audiovisual data).
• Strong understanding of the technical infrastructures that enable and support social science methods at scale.
• Excellent communication and conflict resolution skills.
• Ability to speak fluently about complex research topics with both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience working with large data sets, managing large compute workloads, and monitoring cloud computing infrastructure such as AWS.
• Deep expertise in applied NLP, including transformer fine-tuning, zero-shot and few-shot classification, LLM prompt engineering, and model evaluation best practices.
• Can articulate and champion a technical vision that is grounded in social science research.
• Familiarity with multimodal data processing, including audio, video, and image data; familiarity with HuggingFace ecosystem preferred.

Education/Training/Experience

• PhD-level research experience or equivalent.
• Experience leading research teams or managing people preferred.

Skills

• Excellent communication and conflict resolution skills.
• Fluency in speaking about complex research topics with both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience working with large data sets, managing large compute workloads, and monitoring cloud computing infrastructure such as AWS.
• Deep expertise in applied NLP, including transformer fine-tuning, zero-shot and few-shot classification, LLM prompt engineering, and model evaluation best practices.
• Familiarity with multimodal data processing, including audio, video, and image data; familiarity with HuggingFace ecosystem preferred.

Benefits

• Affordable, comprehensive health care that includes medical, dental (including adult orthodontia) and vision benefits.
• Generous paid annual leave plan, including a winter break between Dec. 25 and Jan. 1.
• Employer-paid disability, life insurance and paid family leave plans.
• Up to a 12% employer 401(k) contribution, with vesting at the end of the first year.
• Flexibility to telework a portion of each week, with an additional four telework “flex weeks” each year for most staff.

Compensation

The typical starting salary for this position is $167,400 annually.

Work Schedule

Pew Research Center staff are required to be present in the Center’s Washington, D.C., office three core days weekly (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday). Staff may work virtually from remote locations on other days in a typical work week.

Total Rewards

• Competitive pay.
• A robust total rewards package that includes:
• Affordable, comprehensive health care that includes medical, dental (including adult orthodontia) and vision benefits.
• A generous paid annual leave plan, including a winter break between Dec. 25 and Jan. 1.
• An employer-paid disability, life insurance and paid family leave plans.
• An up to a 12% employer 401(k) contribution, with vesting at the end of the first year.
• A 37.5-hour workweek.
• Health savings or flexible spending account options with employer funding component.
• Flexibility to telework a portion of each week, with an additional four telework “flex weeks” each year for most staff.